” Over 214,000 doctors won’t participate in the new plans under the Affordable Care Act (ACA,) analysis of a new survey by Medical Group Management Association shows. That number of 214,524, estimated by American Action Forum, is through May 2014, but appears to be growing due to plans that force doctors to take on burdensome costs. It’s also about a quarter of the total number of 893,851 active professional physicians reported by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

In January, an estimated 70% of California’s physicians were not participating in Covered California plans.

Here are some of the reasons why:

1. Reimbursements under Obamacare are at bottom-dollar – they are even lower than Medicare reimbursements, which are already significantly below market rates. “It is estimated that where private plans pay $1.00 for a service, Medicare pays $0.80, and ACA exchange plans are now paying about $0.60,” a study by the think-tank American Action Forum finds. “For example, Covered California plans are setting their plan fee schedules in line with that of Medi-Cal-California’s Medicaid Program-which means exchange plans are cutting provider reimbursement byup to 40 percent.” “

” No, you didn’t hear about that Koch gift to NPR, because it never happened.

But now that I have your attention, let me ask you whether you heard that a different funder, who also has a strong agenda on healthcare, just gave $1.3 million to NPR to report on this topic?

No, you probably didn’t hear about that gift either, by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation—a grant that has caused zero controversy.

Come to think of it, I didn’t recall any controversy when RWJF gave National Public Radio $5.6 million to report on healthcare between 2008 and 2011, during a period when this was among the most politicized of all topics.

You’d think that somebody would at least have raised an eyebrow, given that RWJF is a strong proponent of the Affordable Care Act, as well as other healthcare policy positions on the progressive side of the spectrum.

God bless that foundation, if you ask me. But as a thought experiment, imagine if the Koch brothers had given the same amount of money to NPR to cover healthcare.

” Although the Obama administration has yet to release the federal healthcare premiums for 2015, some private insurers have.

One of them in Minnesota has indicated that they will be showing increases of up to 60% for their ACA-compliant policies. Preferred One, the largest and lowest-cost provider of health insurance in the state, pulled out of the state’s MNsure exchange last month due to its being “unsustainable.” “

” Furthermore, a study was also just released that surveyed 2,600 businesses around the state, finding that 74% said prices of healthcare insurance increased after the law went into effect and that most of these increases were over 10%.”

” For much of its history, the United States had a notably decentralized government structure. Since the 1930s, the national government has undertaken new efforts to regulate the economy and society and to redistribute resources. Those new efforts have implied a greater centralization of authority in Washington. In the past the public often supported such centralization. Public opinion about federalism has changed. Voters are more supportive of decentralized policymaking on many issues where they previously supported a stronger national role. This shift in the public mood is consistent with other polling data that indicates profound distrust in the capacity of the federal government to act on behalf of the public good. On some issues, like national defense, much of the public continues to support national primacy. Such issues are often assigned to Washington by the Constitution. In contrast, much polling finds that many citizens believe state and local governments are likely to perform better than Washington. Americans support a more decentralized federalism than in the past both on particular issues and as a general matter of institutional confidence. “

The study is filled with topical data on the public’s shift away from supporting the overweening Leviathan state including this very telling nugget of information on attitudes towards healthcare …

As the above graph demonstrates , there remains one segment of society that is out of touch with the mainstream on who should decide the issue of healthcare and it’s not the Right . The results are the same or very similar on a wide range of issues , all indicating a strong support of state’s rights with the single exception of education policy .

The other single factor that remains steady is the Democrat’s desire for federal control over ALL issues . Once a statist , always a statist .

” With all that we’ve read on new applications for 3D printing in medicine, it can be a challenge to know which breakthroughs are really worth noting. To sift through the noise, we chatted with physician and entrepreneur Dr. Daniel Kraft (who chairs the annual Exponential Medicine conference) about the state of 3D printing. Below is a round-up covering his views on the latest and greatest advances in 3D printing and their applications for healthcare: “

Disarming The Warriors

Published on Apr 11, 2014” We are defanging our military. What’s more, is that we are taking away their basic human rights to defend themselves, their Second Amendment rights to bear arms in their own self-defense, while asking them to volunteer to defend us. Moreover, we are choosing time and time again to deny them the mental health and veterans’ benefits, while giving more money to entitlements for other communities. Meanwhile, shootings on bases have occurred now multiple times, and 22 people in our armed services commit suicide daily. This is unacceptable–hear why in this Afterburner with Bill Whittle.”

” The federal government spent over $100 billion in taxpayer funds improperly in 2012— one element of that notorious “waste, fraud, and abuse” in federal spending that we hear so much about. Scholars at the Mercatus Center recently released a chart that shows the breakdown of these improper payments across federal programs.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the lion’s share of this improper is in three largest healthcare entitlement programs: Medicare Fee-for-Service, Medicare Advantage (Part C), and Medicaid. Combined, these programs account for a whopping $61.9 billion in improper payments. To put that in perspective, $61.9 billion is more than the entire 2014 budget for the Department of Homeland Security. In other words, we’re talking about real money.”

” Sports fans checking in on coverage of Team USA at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia might want to brace themselves for unexpected outbursts of liberal preaching from reporters covering the games.

Over the years the MRC has documented lefty reporters and writers using the games to celebrate socialist policies, bash expressions of patriotism and even work in jabs against Republicans, like when Bryant Gumbel, in 2006, complained that the “paucity” of black athletes “makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention.”

In the spirit of the games, the most outrageous journalists are competing with each other in three events for the Gold, Silver and Bronze medals. “

MRCTV has provided a great service by creating this article . It shows the reader how the Olympics has been used as a political soapbox by the media for years in their efforts to push their liberal , statist agenda . With clips from Lillehammer , Beijing , Athens , Salt Lake City , Sochi and more MRC examines the American media propensity to push the partisan progressive agenda even as they bemoan the politicization of the Olympics on the part of Americans in the form of an “excessive” nationalism .

” Although the federal government is spending more than $22 billion to encourage hospitals and doctors to adopt electronic health records, it has failed to put safeguards in place to prevent the technology from being used for inflating costs and overbilling, according to a new report by a federal oversight agency.

The report, released on Wednesday by the Office of the Inspector General for the Health and Human Services Department, is the second in two months to warn about flaws in the oversight of the ambitious federal program aimed at converting patient records from paper to electronic. It comes as the Obama administration continues to face broad criticism over the troubled rollout of its health care law — especially the HealthCare.gov site.’

Also, for the second month in a row, 51 percent of insured voters and 45 percent of uninsured voters said they think overall quality of healthcare will decline because of Obamacare, says the Rasmussen Reports phone survey released Monday.”

My family’s journey with securing our new insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) started on October 1, 2013. I have decided to write this letter to let the American people know what it has been like for us. We are a family of four, with two little boys’ ages seven years old and three years old. My husband and I have had full time jobs for 6 years and 13 years respectively. We have been with the same two companies for those years. We are a middle class family; we own our three bedroom two bath house, we own two cars, and previously provided our own insurance for the four of us. We have coverage through Individual Blue from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama until 12/31/13. Our premiums have been $380.00 a month, which also included dental coverage for all four of us.

On October, 1, 2013 we received our letters like other Alabamians about our new premiums and plans for 2014 from Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) of Alabama. When I opened our letter to say I had sticker shock was an understatement. Our premiums for the Blue Saver Silver would now be $753.26. This included the ACA tax but did not include the additional $75.00 we would need to pay in order to keep dental for me and my husband. So we would need to pay total $828.26 to keep health and dental insurance for the four of us. This payment is roughly $64.00 less than what we pay for our mortgage each month. I was outraged that anyone thought we could afford this. Sure we have some savings, but with that price tag we would whittle it down to almost nothing very quickly. I consider savings as a rainy day fund, a start to saving for the kid’s college, our retirement, etc. I never dreamed in a million years we would need to use it to pay our insurance premiums each month – how in the world could this help the economy too?

Throughout the month of October we read everything we could on what our plan would cover, and tried to get the information we needed about the ACA. I was also blown away when I realized that my son’s medical care, he has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), would cost us so much more out of pocket than it was currently costing us. My son has to go to his doctor every other month for his care. If we need to see a therapist we do that monthly, so you see on top of the premiums there are other out of pocket cost we have to factor in. He is also on medication that he takes daily. His medicine is a life saver for him and helps him function like a normal seven year old, without it he can’t focus, his grades slip and his mind literally goes back to the mind of a three or four year old. When he was first put on his medicine his reading went up 20 points and he went from writing one to two sentences to paragraphs, all in the course of a week. He is a straight A student and very bright, but without the proper medical care that could slip away from him. Under our new plan for 2014 we would need to pay a $55.00 co-pay, and then it would be covered at 80 percent once we reached his deductible, which would be $2,000 individual $4,000 family. Out of pocket max numbers are $6,350 individual and $12,700 family. All of this is enough to make anyone’s head spin. We were then forced to look at other options as none of this was affordable for our family.

I started to dig deeper into healthcare.gov. I was hearing all the horror stories through the news about the subpar website. I was reading right off their healthcare.gov Facebook page about other people’s terrible experiences trying to get coverage. Then the government announces that they are going to be working on the site and making it a better experience as well as making it more secure. They had already had three years to make this happen but they said would need the month of November to get it running right. So I waited patiently for them to get the site running so I could see if we would qualify for the subsidy and continue our health insurance through that route.

December 6, 2013 I went to healthcare.gov and started our application. The process took me over two hours to complete. Once it was completed it came back with our results. The results were that my husband and I qualified. That my three year old qualified for All Kids and that my seven year old did not qualify for anything through the exchange (ACA). I was so confused, how could a seven year old not qualify for a subsidy? I was also confused on why they wanted me to enroll one of my children in All Kids? So, I called the number they provided to speak to a representative. I was on hold for 20 minutes when a woman answered and offered to help me with the results. She told me that it is coming back that my seven year old son did not qualify and the only thing I could do was to file an appeal. I asked her a few more questions about how this could have happened, and I was told “she does not know and that all I can do is file an appeal”. She was reading her responses to me right off of a chart that I am sure they are given. So, I ended my conversation with her and proceeded to try to wrap my head around what was happening.

I decided to call back, this time I waited 15 minutes and spoke to a very nice gentleman who seemed to have an understanding for how the system was working. He looked up the results and said “this can’t be right, let’s start over and do an application over the phone”. So again I went through the application process. The results came back the exact same, we all qualified for something except my seven year old son. The gentleman could not understand how this could be happening and assured me it had to be a “glitch” in the system. He placed me on hold so he could speak with his supervisor on how to fix this error. I waited several minutes and when he came back he said “there was nothing more they could do tonight”. He said “we are sending your application to two different departments and that one of the departments would get back to me through a phone call with a fix to this problem”. He also told me “it could take 2-5 days but that I would receive a phone call when they had closed my case”.

So I waited until Tuesday December 10, 2013, which was day four and called them back. I was then told it would be 2-5 business days and if I had not heard from them at that time to call back. So that is what I did, I waited till 9:00 pm on that Friday December 13, 2013 with no phone call. I called Sunday December 15th, 2013 and spoke with my 3rd supervisor who told me “they were very sorry that I had not received a phone call and they were messaging the two departments to give me a call the following day”. He also said to go ahead and file with All Kids in my state because even though they send that information to them, they have no idea when they will receive it. So Monday I went and applied for All Kids for my children, it was a similar application to the healthcare.gov site. I called them to verify that they received my application and was told they cannot access it till sometime in January. They said once they could access it that they would be in touch and if the kids qualified the coverage would retro act to January 1, 2014. So that was a little bit of good news.

So here we are December 22, 2013, the day before the December 23rd deadline to sign up through the Health Insurance Marketplace’s Exchange. I decide I will call one last time to see what they can tell me about coverage, since I never received a phone call after my last conversation with a supervisor. I waited on hold for 1 hour and 15 minutes. I asked to speak with a supervisor and I was transferred. The supervisor pulled my file and was talking to me when she must have accidentally pressed a button and we got disconnected. I thought for sure she would call me back. That is one of the first things they ask for is your phone number. I did not receive a call back, so I call back and have to be placed on hold again to speak to someone. I waited another hour and a half before I get connected with a supervisor. She pulls up my file and tells me “there is nothing they can do and I have to wait the 90 days they have to contact me through the appeals process”. The supervisor tells me “that this whole time I have been told wrong by numerous people and that I should have been called back but that the two departments could do nothing for me”. I just have to wait the 90 days. I asked her, “so yet again an error, due to no fault of my own, has occurred all these times I have been calling and speaking with people and no one can really do anything”? She said “yes that is correct, I am sorry you have been told something different but that is all I can tell you”.

I have never been treated so poorly by any insurance company in my whole life. I have never experienced such terrible customer service in all my years on this earth. I can’t imagine how long a company would last in this country if they followed the same protocol as the ACA/Health Insurance Marketplace does. Most companies can fix a glitch in their systems pretty easily, or can connect you to someone who can. Not the ACA/ Health Insurance Marketplace, you spend all that time on hold to just be told, so sorry but you have to wait for someone to get back to you in a 90 day time span.

What is the most sickening thing to me is that we have been forced into the Health Insurance Marketplace’s Exchange. We wanted to continue our coverage through BSBC and pay as we always had been. But, we found out that option would not be affordable under the new Act, which is how we were forced into the Exchange. Furthermore, not only were we forced into the Exchange, but then forced again to submit an application to ALL Kids for our children. I just don’t understand how we go from being hard working middle class family who provides everything for our family to where we are today. I feel like everything that my husband and I have worked hard for is for nothing. I pray each night that we will get something resolved with our “glitch” in the system so our children will have health insurance coverage in January and by the time I have to purchase my son’s $400 a month ADHD medicine.

I really don’t know how our government can allow this to be taking place. What if something happens and one of my boys breaks an arm, or God forbid something worse? They don’t have insurance, so I guess we will then be paying the hospital monthly if that happens. We are almost completely debit free currently and now all I see is very large medical bills in our future until the government can fix the issues with the ACA/Exchange. I would really like them to rename the Affordable Care Act, because from where I am sitting it is anything but affordable or caring for my family.

” Karri Kinder subsequently posted followups to sites that reproduced her open letter to say:

We are now insured thru healthcare.gov. I was advised to do this even though I didn’t want to leave my children behind. That is the biggest point of my post. My children are uninsured [through] no fault of ours. As well as we didn’t want to have to go thru healthcare.gov. We have always paid our way and want to continue to do so. But at the high premiums and because what we know we will have to pay for our doctor visits and our sons with ADHD there was no way to just stick with BCBS. We have contacted All Kids [a program for children who need comprehensive, affordable health insurance]; we have done what they asked us to do. However we have never qualified for All Kids and there is no guarantee we will now. All Kids told us that they can’t even see their system right now until the new year. So they said they will be contacting us once they are able to see our application

My children not having coverage is the point of my open letter. They are pushing one child into All Kids and one not allowing to be covered through their site or All Kids. That means we will more than likely end up having to get him a plan by himself at the huge rate. My husband and myself went ahead and got coverage thru healthcare.gov, a cheaper plan since it will just be covering the two of us. We qualified to have $255 in subsidies. So for right now only the two of us are covered. The cost for the two of us is $205. It is not the same plan I described on my letter as we went with a cheaper plan. I can’t at the moment tell you what our final cost will be until we find out the outcome of our children. That will add to our finally number for health insurance for the whole family. Like I said before this is about children not being processed correctly and we didn’t want to be forced into the ACA. Which we have been forced to do. The alternative is to not have insurance at all. Something we have always had. I will be happy to update everyone once we know what is happening to our children and what our final cost for all of us will be. I have done everything they healthcare. Gov have instructed me to do numerous times. I will not be doing another application for the third time. This is happening to tons of people. Where one child is being denied through the exchange.”

AMAC, the leading Conservative Alternative to AARP
Dan Weber, President and Founder of AMAC, delivers remarks with the House GOP Doctors Caucus the day the Supreme Court decided to uphold ObamaCare. Standing with Dan are (from left to right) Representatives, Paul Broun (GA-10th), John Fleming (LA-4th), Phil Gingrey GA-11th), Joe Heck (NV-3rd), Ann Marie Buerkle (NY-25th), and Tim Murphy (PA-18th).

” If you haven’t chosen AMAC over AARP yet, here’s why you should.

During the first debate, President Obama touted the support of AARP for ObamaCare several times, clearly tying them together.

Further proof that they were working in concert can be found in recently released emails between the White House and AARP operatives. As the emails show, AARP threw their tremendous power behind the legislation despite the fact they were getting calls overwhelmingly against it.

In fact, on September 20, 2012, Kimberley A. Strassel of the Wall Street Journal wrote:

“Thanks to just-released emails from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, we now know that AARP worked through 2009-2010 as an extension of a Democratic White House, toiling daily to pass a health bill that slashes $716 billion from Medicare, strips seniors of choice, and sets the stage for rationing. We know that despite AARP’s awareness that its seniors overwhelmingly opposed the bill, the ‘nonpartisan organization’ chose to serve the president’s agenda.

The 71 pages of emails show an AARP management taking orders from the White House, scripting the president’s talking points, working to keep its board ‘in line’ and pledging a fealty to ‘the cause.’ Seniors deserve to know all this, as AARP seeks to present itself as neutral in this presidential election.” “

” Republican governors are following the script of Obama and Clinton in their campaign strategy for the Medicaid expansion that is needed to implement ObamaCare: The cast of earnest white coats and tearful upstanding, hard-working patients with hard-luck stories. Statements that sound as though they were written by the same PR firm. The same dire consequences of inaction.

“It’s just the right thing to do,” is a favorite concluding sentence.

What “it” basically means is to get the “free” federal money before somebody else does. Since it doesn’t cost “us” anything, at least not at first, it’s a “no brainer” to just grab it. It means billions of dollars, and thousands of jobs, for “us.

But if we exercise our brains for a minute, we see that in reality the billions go to “them,” not “us.” They are the ones in the expensive suits lurking in the background and attending the closed-door meetings. They are the million-dollar-a-year executives of managed-care companies or administrators in big hospital chains. They get the billions and trickle a portion down to people in scrubs and white coats who do real work, for the care of approved patients. They are the real players; the visible ones are props, shills, or camouflage. They are the decision-makers, who decide who is eligible for what.

They don’t think like doctors. Doctors ask, “What is the best way to help this patient with hepatitis c?” Rather, they ask, “Is this person with a certain set of social characteristics worth spending some of ‘our’ resources?” ”

” During a recent hearing, Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) confronted Dr. Tom Frieden, the Director for the Centers for Disease Control about misleading statements the White House made in regards to the impact sequestration would have on vaccines for children. The video really and truly does speak for itself.

Rep. Harris’s office said this to IJ Review in an official statement:

It’s troubling that President Obama decided to play politics with sequestration instead of working to find a solution to cut government waste and get spending under control. The American people are sick of this president constantly campaigning and are yearning for leadership to tackle the major challenges we face.”

” The welcome materials the federal government directs new immigrants to read — which detail, among other facets of American life, how and where to get government benefits — are in the process of getting a bit of a makeover to increase accessibility for newcomers.

The WelcometoUSA.gov website, which bills itself as “the U.S. Government’s official web portal for new immigrants,” maintained by the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), will soon feature information about President Barack Obama’s signature health care legislation, USCIS spokesman Chris Bentley told The Daily Caller.”

” The text on the front page of the site has also been significantly reduced. Initially the text read:

“Welcome to the United States! On behalf of the President of the United States and the American people, we welcome you to this great nation. The United States has benefited from the contributions of immigrants since its founding more than 200 years ago, and we are certain that our newest immigrants will continue this storied legacy. Freedom and opportunity are of the utmost importance in the United States and we wish you the very best as you begin your journey. As a permanent resident, you have made the decision to call the United States your home. It is now your responsibility to learn about this country’s civic values, its rich history, and its citizens. As you settle into your new home, WelcometoUSA.gov will help you find basic information about the United States and your new community. The Federal Government has a variety of resources for you. We encourage you to learn as much as you can about this country as you are now a valued part of our nation. Your contributions will help ensure the success of the United States for years to come. Congratulations and welcome. We hope you enjoy great success in the United States.”

It now says:

“Welcome to the United States! On behalf of the President of the United States and the American people, we welcome you to this great nation. The United States has benefited from the contributions of immigrants since its founding more than 200 years ago. As you settle into your new home, WelcometoUSA.gov will help you find basic information about the United States and your new community.” ”

” Well known in Japan for his harsh mode of speech, Deputy PM and the head of the Finance Ministry Taro Aso told at the National Council on Social Security Reforms that the Japanese government pays for the meaningless enforced prolongation of lives of those whose days are numbered.

Gee , we always thought that the Government paid with OUR money , who knew it is the State’s money

“The minister has reportedly been referring to “tube people” in terminal condition who cannot feed themselves. The minister gave them advice to “hurry up and die,” reports AFP, instead of burdening the state with prodigal end-of-life medical care.

Almost a third of Japan’s 128 million population are older than 60. Within next half century the number of pensioners will reach 40 per cent of the population.

Though his sharp remark has sparked a scandal, Aso has not resiled from his statement, explaining that this is his personal belief and it does not correlate with “what the end-of-life medical care system should be.” “

Japan has gotten the jump on the Obamacare bandwagon … but never fear rationed healthcare is on it’s way .

This just goes to show the attitude of the State . We are welcome as long as we are PAYING taxes but as soon as we start to receive some of our “investment” back then we become a liability that needs to just die so that we cease to drain the government coffers .

Anti-euthanasia group said: ‘The Pathway is designed to finish people off double quick

Don’t think it will happen here?

We have already made it ethically and legally acceptable to kill this amalgamation of tissue:

Notice what the UK Health Minister says about the “pathway”:

Despite the revelations, Jeremy Hunt last night claimed the pathway was a ‘fantastic step forward’. In comments that appeared to prejudge an official inquiry into the LCP, the Health Secretary said ‘one or two’ mistakes should not be allowed to discredit the entire end-of-life system.

” Is it guns? Is it mental illness? Is it a “society that has lost the understanding that decent human values are important,” as Kelsey points out? No one knows the answer, and anyone that claims to know the answer cannot possibly prove themselves to be correct. Maybe America needs to bring responsible gun owners, advocates for the betterment of mental illness, and several other different types of leaders together to talk about what we need to do to prevent these types of horrendous crimes from happening again, because simply pointing politically-postured fingers at gun owners and the NRA will not solve anything, and it certainly won’t bring the country closer together. “

” If you’re on our facebook page ever, you’ve probably noticed that we’ve been absolutely bombarded with liberals lately. They’re in epic panic mode now that the election is just a day away, and their hysteria is at an all time high.

Case in point. Leslie Vaughn wrote this in response to the post/picture I put up last night about liberal feminists.

She had so many talking points in it I thought it might be a good idea to address each one in the same post, so that perhaps these misguided, misinformed, mistaken women might learn something. (I know, not likely, but I wanted to at least give it the old college try.)

“Support contraception!” Leslie says. Newsflash, Leslie. Many many many conservatives DO support contraception. We have nothing against it. In fact, I consider contraception to be sort of a hallmark of one of the basic guiding principles of conservatism – which is TAKING PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. You want to have sex and not get pregnant? Protect yourself. It’s really simple. What we do NOT support, is forcing others to pay for your desire to have sex. Which leads me to Leslie’s next talking point. “